


Fallen Out of Sync

by CycloneRachel



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Friendship, Gen, Introspection, One Shot, Season/Series 05 Spoilers, Supergirl (TV 2015) Season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:15:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22833142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CycloneRachel/pseuds/CycloneRachel
Summary: Alex reflects on Brainy, and her history with trust in him, as he needs her to trust him again.(based loosely on the prompt "Sensing destruction before it happens.", from tumblr user mistyautumn)
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Querl Dox
Comments: 7
Kudos: 14





	Fallen Out of Sync

Alex thought she could trust him.

She always could, since the first time they met- Brainiac title notwithstanding, he proved that when he had saved her sister.

(Or helped save, anyway, she’d saved herself, but he had impressed her with the Legion’s medical technology, continuing to keep watch over her even after she left the healing tank, and he’d given her the cast that had helped fix her leg too, which she couldn’t help but be grateful for)

(And he’d signed her regular, non-futuristic cast in binary code, which, after she figured it out, led her to smile at him more than she would have during such a dark period of their lives. He, stoic as he was, smiled too, which was all she could’ve asked for as the DEO and the Legion continued to work together, and attempted to improve their personal relations with one another, so that at the end of all of it the Legion would leave knowing they had friends in the past)

Maybe she hadn’t always known- after all, there had been that first blow to her trust in him, and the Legion, when she and the DEO had learned that Imra and Brainy had lied about why they were truly in the twenty-first century. They had chosen to go there on purpose, knowing the timeline, but Mon-El waking up first had disrupted their plans, and as minor of a shift as that had been, they needed to stay on track. Namely, doing so to improve their own timeline, and working with Kara’s team to end the life of one specific Worldkiller who would evolve into a future threat for them.

(Alex could always trust Kara. Even when she didn’t like her, she knew she had the best of intentions, and so she sided with her in that conflict. But if she had been a Legionnaire, knowing what they’d gone through and having seen so much death and decay, desolation of worlds… she might’ve considered otherwise)

Of course, that situation had ended in a way none of them expected, and so the Legion was able to go home early. But Mon-El chose to stay behind and help deal with Reign, with those from the century he’d lived more of his life in, where he’d made his first real friends, and it was, as she learned from Kara, because of Brainy- the second blow to her trust in him. He had given a small jar of future dirt to Winn, that Alex herself had looked at and thought nothing of. She’d wanted to believe that Brainy, who had spent nearly all of his time with Winn arguing with him, seeing that he had competition, was finally softening up around Winn, and from what Winn had told her- admitting, in his own way that he was wrong about Winn, and then attempting to “embrace” him (which looked to Winn like he had been going in for a kiss, which was changed to a “bro-hug” immediately afterwards)- he believed it too. However, after Alex verified that there was a bug in the dirt, she and Winn knew that at least on that front, it had been a ruse, and he still wanted to keep an eye on them for his own reasons.

(Even if those reasons had also been for their benefit, by bringing Mon-El back to them. Which Mon-El clarified, once he got to tell her the side of the story he’d heard from Brainy.)

Alex still knew that Brainy had the capability to lie, though, that if he saw deception as the logical path of action, he would take it. But in that past year and a half, since the Legion had returned and he’d stayed, since he became her agent, he hadn’t lied to her. He might’ve not understood her, at times, but they’d come to understand each other since then, built a strong foundation for their friendship and partnership. He’d seen her when she was struggling to lead the DEO without J’onn there, and she had seen him when he was trying to adjust to being on his own, as well, without any of his Legionnaire friends that he could support or be supported by.

So, as that year went on, they became each other’s support systems, again working together in a dark time, so that by the following autumn, just a few months ago, both of them had come to the realization that they’d found their rhythm.

It had been comforting, realizing that at the same time, knowing that they were steady alongside each other. Looking out for one another, trusting each other even when one of them had a plan that didn’t seem great at first (Brainy putting the Aurafacian tattoos on his own body came to mind on that one). But even though Supergirl wasn’t present in the DEO most of the time, and J’onn only worked with them occasionally, and in the previous year some of the other agents seemed more loyal to Haley than to Alex, they always had each other’s backs.

(Except when one of the Morae knocked Brainy over the balcony, and he had landed on his back, keeping him out of the field for a few days. But she knew he didn’t hold that against her.)

Things started to shift for them, however, after Brainy had taken his inhibitors off, and they’d only fallen further from there. Even so, Alex was trying to hold onto the belief that he was still trustworthy, that she didn’t have to watch him. That what she noticed wasn’t a sign of him lying to her, or their friends, like he had before.

Apparently, though, she was wrong, as she learned later that very day. The third blow to her trust in him, and this time she had to confront him directly.

The worst part was that she wanted to believe him, when he said he was trying to protect her. She wanted to agree with him, when he was talking about technology being used against them, because he was right. He told her he didn’t want Lex to come after her… but he sounded sure about that.

Like it was an inevitability, instead of a theory.

But then again, as he reminded all of them, he was smarter than anyone on the planet, and maybe he’d calculated those odds. And he’d protected other DEO agents, and Kara, from taking any more unnecessary risks with fighting the Lexosuits- even risking his own life in the process. So maybe, if he was hiding something, it was for a reason- like with the dirt- that would benefit all of them. Maybe he was doing something that put him in the line of fire, so that his loved ones would be safe.

And didn’t Alex know about that? Wasn’t she so familiar with it that she’d only recently dealt with that very same subject between herself and Kelly?

He knew the risks, and knew what he had to do, and so did she.

Which was why she was going to keep fighting the good fight, even outside of working under Lex, and he was going to stay, seeing it through.

Before any fighting, though, she found herself- as she’d done many times before- at Al’s bar.

~

Querl had never been much of a drinker.

It was not as though he particularly liked indulging in alcoholic substances- he didn’t often, due to lack of time for things outside of official Legion business, but sometimes the stress overwhelmed him enough that he did, and this was one of those times.

Even though he’d had time to adjust to taking off his inhibitors, such emotions still got to him, and they followed him all the way to Al’s bar, where he attempted to hold them back in the form of whatever he could get that he might not be able to recover from so quickly.

“It’s too early for this.”

In his alcohol-induced haze, he knew someone was speaking to him, and so he allowed himself to sober up, only to turn and face Alex, sitting beside him at the bar.

“Direc- I mean, Alex. Hello.”

“Hello yourself.” Alex answered.

“Do you want something? I can pay for it, Mr. Luthor gave me a raise.”

Alex gave him a tight-lipped smile, shaking her head.

“No, that’s fine.” She said. “The real question is, how are _you_ doing? The last time we talked, you told me you had everything figured out. You even looked happy, when we were all saying goodbye to Winn again. And here we are the next day, and you’ve suddenly turned into a day-drinker? What’s going on with you?”

Querl sighed.

He’d gotten out of their previous argument by bending the truth just enough to placate her, being honest that he was loyal to her and her sister, only invested in their protection and keeping them safe at all costs. He was getting better at lying, thanks to Winn’s encouragement, and becoming more used to working with a former enemy. But now, when Lex wasn’t around and they were no longer work partners…

He was still trying to adjust in such situations.

Especially when he suspected- keeping this hypothesis close to him, like a bulletproof vest- that Lex had another motive for keeping him there, giving him a position that, with Lex in charge, meant that he had to go ever further into the game he and Lex were playing against each other, becoming tied closer to him before things came to a conclusion between him and Lena and Leviathan and Andrea.

Lex had no idea that Querl was a player in their game, and he was going to keep it that way for as long as he could- no matter how much destruction, literal or figurative, happened in his life before then.

And Querl, after seeing the toll Lex and Leviathan had taken on his other self, looking through her eyes as she held her wife in her arms and looked upon the burned-out House of El sigil on her chest, as she saw her pass on into the Coluan collective consciousness, the DEO in ruins all around her- he knew that there would be a lot of destruction.

His job was only to minimize it for everyone else, to metaphorically get those he cared for out of the burning building before it all fell down on him.

Even if they wanted to stay, and take the burden, he couldn’t let that happen, or allow for that risk. And what had happened with Alex, fortunately enough, only helped him in that regard.

It didn’t help when he was talking with her, and when she looked at him with what he believed was pity in her eyes.

“Lex… made me the new DEO director.” He said. “And- though it is not your fault by any means- I have nobody left to support me. Nobody who is in the same role as I was to you, perhaps- nobody I can trust. I know I should not complain, given that I did receive a promotion, and I am capable of such duties… but this position, and I, are still lonely.”

Alex stared at him for a long time, eyes softening as she gently rubbed his back, in sympathy.

“Sorry.” She said. “I felt that too, after J’onn left. Even with you there…”

“I know. I was present during that time.”

“Yeah, but… if you have any questions about anything, or even if you want to complain at me while we drink at an appropriate time, I’m here for you.” She continued. “It’ll be okay, Brainy. You can do this, I promise- and I know that, if I ask Kara, she’ll be able to help you out at a moment’s notice.”

Brainy gave her a weak smile.

“It is what she does.” He answered, knowing that he didn’t deserve such a promise, or for that matter her calling him her friend, after everything he’d done to deceive her- both now, and when they first met. “Thank you, Alex. You remain a true friend.”

“No problem- _Director Dox_.”

**Author's Note:**

> so I kicked my writer's block's ass this morning, and what happened was this post-5x12 Alex and Brainy thing (combined with a previous prompt from tumblr user padawanton, "It’s too early for this.”). I haven't written these two in a while, so I hope this is good?


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